Germinación in vitro de orquídeas

Whereas Ball (2003) writes about the individual teacher with little reference to the details of individual local environments, Figured Worlds sees the individual as an actor in a social context. Holland et al’s (1998) theory focuses on the development of identity and agency rooted within such social contexts, and the social relations between individuals. They assert that the: ‘…development of identities and agency are specific to practices and activities situated in historically contingent, socially enacted, culturally constructed worlds’ (1998:7). They describe figured worlds thus:

Figured worlds take shape within and grant shape to the co-production of activities, discourses, performances and artefacts. A figured world is peopled by figures, characters, and types who carry out its tasks and who also have styles of interacting within, distinguishable perspectives on, and orientations towards it. (5)

Holland et al bring together elements from Vygotsky, Bourdieu and Bakhtin in order to describe the development of identity and agency within culturally and discursively constrained contexts. Drawing on Vygotsky’s work on play and imagination, they argue that, in the specific contexts or environments in which we all live our lives, we collectively imagine or figure our worlds, leading to a shared understanding of these worlds and how they work. These worlds are peopled by a series of characters of lesser or greater significance and there is a shared culture in which certain objects or acts are seen as having particular, commonly agreed meanings. Thus a ‘figured world’ is a:

…socially and culturally constructed realm of interpretation in which particular characters and actors are recognized, significance is assigned to certain acts, and particular outcomes are valued over others. (52)

Holland et al remind us that: ‘…for Foucault knowledge cannot be divorced from position’ (1998: 57). Drawing on Bourdieu’s work on power and position, they note that, in addition to the identities generated in a figured world, individuals are positioned in relation to others. Thus, positional worlds sit alongside figured worlds and power is integral to

64 positional worlds. Bourdieu claims that whenever humans interact there are power hierarchies at play (Holland et al, 1998:128). He refers to the hierarchies as ‘fields of power’ (Bourdieu, 1984:41) in which social positions are defined against one another. The source of the power can relate to the symbolic, cultural or economic capital that individuals hold, the possession of sufficient capital enabling domination of other positions. Power can also relate to ‘habitus’, the dispositions, tastes and ways of thinking, associated with a culture of like-minded people. Bourdieu asserts that habitus enables the reproduction of social structures (1977). Hence, some will have the power to impose: ‘their vision of the divisions of the social world and their positions within it’ (Bourdieu 1985:732, cited in Holland et al: 158). Each person’s niche or role relates to others as they operate in a world of position and power. Nonetheless, Holland et al maintain that the discursive nature of positioning is not a determining one. However constrained things might appear, there is space for self- direction. Whilst they acknowledge that individuals are socialised into particular cultures, with underlying values and belief systems, they argue that individuals also have choices about how they respond to the demands and expectations of discursive positioning. They can improvise their behaviour, attitudes and actions accordingly. Holland et al contend that:

Agency lies in the improvisations that people create in response to particular situations…They opportunistically use whatever is at hand to affect their position in the cultural games in the experience of which they have formed these sets of dispositions. (279)

They draw upon Vygotsky’s conceptualisation of artefacts as tools of liberation from the control of environmental stimuli: they are central to agency. For Vygotsky, the potential for humans to expand their horizons arises from the use of cultural tools (in Holland et al, 1998: 64). Hence, figured worlds rely upon artefacts employed by people in their performances.

Vygotsky recognised the ability of humans to use mediating devices, including language, to modify their own mental environment and so direct their own actions and behaviour. This language, however, is developed and sustained in conjunction with others. The bedrock of socio-constructivist theory is that human development is socially situated and knowledge is constructed through interacting with others. Holland and Valsiner (1988:251) assert that:

65 For Vygotsky, words constitute the prototypical mediating device. Language is a collective and historical creation that one learns in the course of interacting with one’s fellows and eventually incorporates as a primary tool for organising cognition and affect.

Vygotsky emphasised the potential of words as tools, as ‘bootstraps’ by which one could pull oneself up to another form of behaviour, enabling self-control (in Holland et al, 1998:177). However, Holland et al also acknowledge the place that culture can hold in determining our responses. They see culturally and socially constructed discourses as the living tools of the self. Therefore, the self is always embedded in social practice: ‘Identities become important outcomes of participating in communities of practice…identities are formed in the process of participating in activities organised by figured worlds.’(57) Thus, our stories and collective remembrance can serve as cultural artefacts to mediate thoughts and feeling.

What counts in the identities of figured worlds, is the cultural relations, the rules that govern the movements of the game (Holland et al, 1998). We acquire positional dispositions and identities as we come to recognise the signs or semiotic mediators of status within our world, learning what we can do and cannot do in a given situation. Yet, Holland et al maintain that positional identities are not without disruptions. The same semiotic mediators that serve to reproduce structures of privilege, position and identity, may also work as a potential for liberation from the social environment. We can offer resistance. The world can be figured differently. Bourdieu would have it that the improvisations that are a character of all social behaviour make a difference to the habitus of the next generation (1984a:76). However, Bakhtin asserts that the changes can make a difference in the present (in Holland et al, 1998: 45). Bakhtin sees these places, where cultural forms are re-arranged, as spaces of authoring (in Holland et al, 1998: 173).

Nonetheless, our behaviour can be automatic and unthinking. Holland et al explain how our identity becomes habituated as we go about our daily lives, immersing ourselves in the social activities that position us within a figured world. In what Vygotsky terms ‘fossilisation’, we may no longer be aware of the original mediating devices that modified our behaviour. However, Holland et al assert that this is not an irreversible process.

66 ‘Ruptures of the taken-for-granted can remove these aspects of positional identities from automatic performance and recognition to commentary and re-cognitions,’ (141). Re- cognition disorients individuals. They see themselves from other perspectives, becoming self-aware and, in consequence are able to see themselves and their context afresh. Black and Williams (2013:11, cited in Braathe and Solomon, 2015:152) assert that:

The adult can, in the right circumstances, come to see these selves and contradictions, and through semiotic action (i.e. discourses with others and self-reflection), come to have some degree of control over them.

This offers possibilities of making changes in their worlds and themselves. Bourdieu (1984: 182) describes the: ‘…critical moment, when, breaking with the ordinary experience as simple re-enactment of a past or a future inscribed in the past, all things become possible…’ whilst Holland et al (1998:270) use co-development as a metaphor to indicate how changes in perception can lead to opportunities to act differently, to make changes in one’s environment.

There is incongruity in that, in order to change, we draw upon our existing cultural resources, though, in reality, we have little else. Holland et al (1998:170) ally this with Levi- Strauss’s (1966) ‘bricoleur’, who builds with pre-existing materials. We find new ways to use these, to improvise and, in doing so, gain a degree of autonomy and control.Bakhtin (in Holland et al, 1998:45) contends that people can reassert a point of control through the rearrangement of cultural forms as evocations of position.

Holland et al’s theory of agency leads them to present a picture of behaviour as constantly improvised: ‘As individuals improvise their responses to social and cultural openings offered to them, identities are worked and reworked within this landscape,’ (270). Identity is, therefore, always fluid and we are always in the process of ‘becoming’, never a fixed entity. They argue that:

Within specific social situations, persons or groups, caught in tensions between past history and the present discourses that impinge upon them,identities are a hard-won standpoint.(4).

67 However, these identities offer possibilities of mediating agency. We make the choices that allow a modicum of self-direction. Holland et al draw again on Bourdieu’s (1977) account of social practice, and his argument that we can only ever improvise because we cannot have a complete set of rules for every possible social situation. They claim that culture is not an abstract system but, rather, one in which we constantly improvise within ever changing social and material conditions. In doing this, they argue, we draw upon our own ‘history-in-person’. This relates both to past experiences and how we dealt with these, using the available cultural resources, and to our current position. In combination, these can provide us with the tools we have to afford ourselves some agency. Thus, the: ‘…development of identities and agency are specific to practices and activities situated in historically contingent, socially enacted, culturally constructed worlds’ (1998:7). Such ‘identities in practice’ are the subject of narratives of self, and Holland et al employ Bakhtin’s idea of ‘self-authoring’ to capture this.